


dreamsight

by sybilius



Series: count to ten and run for cover (B-sides) [3]
Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Genre: 70s AU, Character Death, Character Study, Crossover, Drabble Series, M/M, Psychological anxieties manifesting as dreams, Rope/Bondage Mention, Tweechik, dreamscape, good followup to hoarfrost, kinda a tweechik fic in a weird way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-18 21:16:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18126596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: Across miles of space and hundreds of years, two men (once, always) bound together share the same dream.A peculiar crossover betweentalking won't save youandcount to ten and run for cover





	1. nightscape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deepandlovelydark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/gifts).



> This was on prompt from my dear co-author D. I begged them to give me something to work with since I'd been craving fluff all day. They gave me "Tuco in Tweechik" as a prompt, and well, I continue to have a total inability to write fluff, but this came out the other side.
> 
> I wrote this mainly on the sketch of the way my own dreams go; which tend to be goal-driven and have a sense of space I only mistrust after I've woken. My fiancee has dreams wherein people she loves have completely different personalities; so this is kind of an amalgamation of our dreamscapes. It's a tropey way to make this prompt work, but I also quite like the concept of it. 
> 
> The dream is told in alternating drabbles, and then there's two small codas for what comes after :)

He will say he should have known; and the pain is why. 

No dullness in it. 

Blondie tugs the frayed jute of the rope tight between his hands, the sunlight from the window calling him to the early spring work. 

The sharpness in his chest holds him there. 

Angel Eyes is there. 

“You thinking too much again? We have a bridge to build.”

Those words would be strange to him, but no stranger than Angel's crushing kiss, so uncharacteristic of their mornings.

“Yeah. Guess I am.”

Despite this, because of this-- he crosses under the bones and into the sunlight. 

*

Tuco realizes it's cold only after he's spit the snow out. How he got face first into a muddy bank with a long gun pointed between his eyes-- 

Now who the hell was this  _ niñito  _ holding a gun? 

“Get up.” 

_ Niñita _ , dressed much better for the weather than he is. Some kind of old time leather and a wool hat. 

Oh right, gun. He straightens. Her brow knits. Something about her seriousness reminds him of Angel...

“How is-- is this helping you stay warm?” She lowers the gun, picks at his tie-dye shirt curiously.

“Now you mention it -- it's  _ freezing. _ ”

*

_ Bright _ , the next thing Blondie remembers. Colors flashing on the horizon, before his throat constricts-- 

The man carrying all that lurid color is  _ years _ dead, and seeing his face next to Jordan's makes him reach for the Navy buried under layers of clothing. 

Tuco's ghost smiles at Jordan’s calls to him; smiles differently. Blondie didn't remember that. 

He turns back to Angel Eyes-- he's gone. 

This isn't their Mexican standoff. Only Blondie in this spring reckoning, watching Tuco vanish behind Sue's door. 

Blondie says a silent prayer to no god he trusts anymore that Tuco won't hurt anyone. 

He follows. 

*

“Get him Jack's old coat.” 

Tuco rather likes this woman Sue, strange as she is, who wrinkled her nose at his clothes but ushered him in front of a fire when she saw him shiver. Better company than the silent child. 

Sue pushes a steaming cup into his hands, “We're building a bridge, stranger. You think you can help?” 

It's so direct, Tuco nods; a goal. It's work, but no use getting something for nothing. He doesn't think dishwashing holds much weight here. 

The wooden door opens, and his face breaks into a grin. He should have known. 

“Hey, Blondie!” 

*

The ghost greets him wrong. 

His accent is thicker, drawn out -- and he's missing that vicious spit Tuco had, before he'd let out a stream of insults Blondie deserved. 

“You alright?” Castellan tilts her head, ghost-seer that she is. He nods. 

“That Angel with you?” the ghost peers around,  _ why  _ is he calling Angel Eyes by that name? That'll get him killed.

Blondie spins around, terrified he's traded one ghost for another; but Angel is there. Angel reaches for his Remington. Before he can think, Blondie steps between them, staying Angel's hand. 

“He's here for you,” Angel says. 

He’s right. 

*

The way Angel Eyes stares at him, Tuco nearly gets up and makes a run for it. He wants to. 

So is that the way he looks, when he kills someone? Ice and knives, a smirk like the devil-- but no, even in the diner, Tuco wasn't quite this scared of him. 

Blondie's between them though -- but,  _ Dios ten piedad _ , there's so much that's all wrong with him too. Tiredness, a nervy terror. Worse, he avoids looking Tuco in the eye. 

“You okay, Blondie?” 

“That bridge?” Blondie's voice is hoarse. 

“Right, right. We should build it. That's what she said.” 

*

The river is three times the size it normally is, even with the meager spring melt. It roars and tears over the land next to Sue's home. Blondie wonders how Lars’ house is still standing. Tuco tosses him a block of wood with a grin. 

This isn't the man he knew. 

But the man thinks he knows Blondie-- he looks at Blondie with a kind of concern even his best memories of running with Tuco never had.  

“I want to say I'm sorry to him,” he says to Sue, quietly.

“For what?”

“I killed him.”

“He looks alive to me.”

*

Tuco would prefer if this man calling himself Angel Eyes wasn't helping them build the bridge. 

It’s natural as breathing, trying to protect Blondie. Though he can see, Blondie and Angel Eyes fall in step together as well he and Blondie would. 

Tuco uses woolen mittens to mop his forehead, admire the mountains. Open space he could get used to, if he could remember-- 

“ _ Omnia mors aequat _ .”

Tuco turns to face Angel Eyes. 

“What?”

“That said. I don't believe you'd have given him that noose.”

Tuco doesn't understand it; but knows it's what's keeping Angel’s gun safe in its holster.

*

Blondie steps back to admire their handiwork. He somehow feels like he should be finished but -- he’s still here. 

He steps slowly to the ghost, measuring him out with a flinty gaze he’d almost forgotten how to force out. Tuco smiles almost sheepishly, and he forgets all his anger and apologies. 

Might as well treat this as it comes. 

“It’s um. Good to see you.”

“Sure, sure,” he’s looking at him with  _ concern _ again, and Blondie meets Angel’s gaze behind him, nods that he’s safe. 

“Did you make up with your brother? Up there?” 

*

“So serious, Blondie -- me and Pablo are fine, you know, you can write him a letter anytime,” he almost reaches for Blondie, but thinks better of it, “You okay, I mean, here? Where--” 

Tuco looks around at the barren town, not a single car in sight-- just wooden shacks and melting snow.

“It’s not much but -- it’s good.”

He’s not Blondie, but he says it with Blondie’s voice, that halting admission that it’s something they can sleep on for now. Then he smiles, at the corner of his mouth. 

Tuco leans towards him through a cold gust of air-- Blondie’s like catching the wind, Tuco thinks -- 


	2. waking, i

Tuco wakes with a twitch, the cold sweat stinging on his forehead. He blinks up at the dim gatehouse rafters, his partner shifting beside him under the heavy quilt. This is a place he remembers. This is  _ safe _ in the same way that Blondie had said _ good _ about that place-- 

Angel Eyes turns up the low yellow of the bedside light, props himself up on his elbow, “ ¿Todo esta bien? ”

“ Sí,” Tuco takes him in, reassured to see that familiar, measured respect in Angel’s soft smile, “Did I wake you?”

“I take most of what I’d call sleep during the day. But you’ve seen that firsthand,” Angel’s hands are bare, as they often are when he’s at the gatehouse. Tuco suddenly remembers that the Angel Eyes in the dream had been missing part of a finger. He takes Angel’s hand, squeezes the whole fingertips gently.  

“Just -- the strangest dream, you and Blondie were there but you weren’t  _ you _ at all. You looked like you’d kill me just to see what it would do to my face; and Blondie -- he was so  _ sad _ but carried that like a weight rather than like he was so holy for it, and it was so cold and  _ strange _ there. But it was good, Blondie said it was good.”

He trails off. That isn’t much of a story, but Angel is taking it with a steady nod. When Tuco says little else, he rummages in the drawer for his pipe, which means he’s settling in to stay up a little and listen. That suits Tuco fine. He’s not ready to sleep and fall back into whatever world he’d just seen. And he rather suspects oranges would be tough to find, all that snow and not a car to be seen...

“Sounds like it was a little disconcerting. Not knowing those you feel you know best?” Angel shifts himself up against the pillows, and Tuco takes the offer of space gratefully, nestling his head on Angel’s shoulder. A shame, he thinks for the third time that evening, that Blondie wasn’t there to join them. It’s been a long Lent. 

“It was. Do you know --” it comes to him in a flash, “What does  _ omnia mors aequat _ mean?”

“That’s Latin. You probably heard me say it to Blondie,” Angel Eyes looks distant, almost sad, as he runs a hand absently through Tuco’s curls, “Death makes all things equal.”

“Oh. Funny that. I feel like Blondie in the dream knew I wasn’t the same, too. And we tried to build a bridge,” Tuco stifles a yawn, the familiar smell of Angel’s tobacco and the fire burning low in the corner of the bedroom steadying him some. 

“Did you?”

“You know, I guess we did. It didn’t seem important, but we did.”


	3. waking, ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> D the ending is cause you said I could be funny, so here's me trying ;)

Blondie’s eyes snap open, missing the touch he should have flinched away from. Nothing. He sits up in the bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. It’s summer, not springtime.  _ Means god knows what time it is _ . But he can tell from the soreness in his back and the slowness it’s taking Angel to wake that it’s pretty damn early.

“You dreaming?” Angel rolls to his other side without sitting up, and Blondie is struck by the thought of Angel as the ghost in the dream all over again.  _ God above _ . 

“Yeah, um. Yeah.”

Angel sits up, sharp-eyed in the midnight sun through the thin curtains. Puts his hand on the jackrabbit pulse of Blondie’s neck. Doesn’t say anything till it slows.  _ Hell of a thing to tell him about.  _ Blondie’s never really talked about Tuco, much.  _ Should I start now, I mean. I know that wasn’t him, in the dream. _

Blondie swallows, “You remember the graveyard?”

“Yeah.”

“I dreamed Tuco came to Tweechik.”

“Mm. You killed him?” it’s somewhere between a question and a statement.

“Sometimes I wish to god I hadn’t,” Blondie admits. 

It’s only after another beat of silence that Blondie realizes he expects Angel to ask  _ why _ ; to demand an explanation for his hesitation. Six years it’s been now, and he doesn’t. Blondie props up his pillow, seeks out his box of quirleys.  _ I shouldn’t be wasting them but -- at least it’s summer _ . And this feels like something he might need. 

“He was different, in the dream. He was.” Blondie stops short.  _ More like I wanted him to be. But I didn’t know that, then. _ “He had a different way of talking.”

There were so many things he knew weren’t  _ right _ about Tweechik in the dream, the way the space was compressed, the utter madness of building a bridge over the spring melt.  _ What a waste of time that would be _ . But somehow; seeing Tuco, not-Tuco --  _ well. It’s not like I’ve dreamed about him before.  _

“Did he look any different?” Angel asks once he’s lit his pipe.

“No, same face. But he had the worst shirt you could possibly imagine.”


End file.
